Business and academic career

Peters worked for 22 years as a financial advisor, serving as an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch from 1980 until 1989 when he joined Paine Webber as a vice president.[12][13][14]

From 2007 to 2008, Peters served as the third Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government at Central Michigan University. In that part-time position, he taught one class a semester, plus preparing additional student activities including two policy forums, and developing a journal of Michigan politics and policy, for $65,000 a year.[15] Peters announced his candidacy to run for Congress two months after being hired.[16] Student activists protested Peters’ hiring, saying he could not be objective in the classroom while running for office and that the university job was subsidizing his campaign.[16][17]

Michigan Senate

Elections

In November 1994, Peters was elected to the Michigan Senate to represent the Oakland County-based 14th district. He was re-elected in 1998 and served until 2002, when he was compelled to retire owing to the law on term limits. Peters was succeeded in the 14th district by Gilda Jacobs.

Peters was chosen by his Democratic colleagues to chair his party's caucus. He was also a member of the Michigan Law Revision Commission and served on the Michigan Sentencing Commission.[19] Both the Michigan State House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill sponsored by Peters which banned any new wells under the state waters of the Great Lakes except in case of a state energy emergency. The bill passed into law without the signature of Governor John Engler.[20]

Committee assignments

He served as the vice chairman of the Senate Finance, Education, Judiciary and Economic Development Committees. He was also a member of the Natural Resources and the Mental Health and Human Services Committee.[19]

2002 statewide elections

In his final year as a member of the Michigan Senate, Peters was a candidate for governor and later for Attorney General. As the Democratic nominee for attorney general, he lost to Republican Mike Cox. Peters came within 5,200 votes of Cox—less than a 0.17 percent margin.[21][22] Peters decided not to contest the election results despite reported irregularities. Several mistakes were reportedly found during analysis, including a precinct in Dearborn which recorded Peters with 96 votes when he actually had 396. The race was the closest statewide contest in Michigan since the 1950 gubernatorial race.[23]

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

On August 7, 2007, Peters ended months of speculation by formally announcing he would run against eight-term Republican congressman Joe Knollenberg in the 9th District, which included almost all of Oakland County. Peters resigned as state lottery commissioner to devote his full energy to the campaign.

Knollenberg was considered vulnerable due to an increasing Democratic trend in what was once a heavily Republican district. He was nearly defeated in 2006 by Nancy Skinner, a former radio talk-show host who spent virtually no money, leading the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to target him for defeat. Knollenberg's opponents in 2002 and 2004 performed significantly below the Democratic base in the 9th District.

In the 2002 state attorney general race, Peters performed at or above the Democratic base in 72 percent of the 9th District precincts. In his 1998 state Senate campaign, he performed at or above base in 99 percent of the precincts.[27]

Peters won the November 4 election by 33,524 votes, taking 52 percent of the vote to Knollenberg's 43 percent. Barack Obama carried Oakland County by 15 points; roughly two-thirds of Oakland County was in the 9th. He was the fourth person and first Democrat to represent the district since its creation in 1933.[28]

Due to the state's population decline, as reflected by the 2010 Federal Census, Michigan lost one congressional district. As a result of the subsequent redistricting of house seats, much of Peters' 9th district, including his home in Bloomfield Hills, was merged with the 12th district, represented by fellow Democrat Sandy Levin. The new district retained Peters' district number—the 9th—but geographically was more Levin's district.

In September 2011, Peters opted to run in the newly redrawn 14th District. The district had previously been the 13th District, represented by freshman Democrat Hansen Clarke. The redrawn district is based in Detroit, but contains a large chunk of Peters' old State Senate district and portions of his old congressional district. Indeed, Peters had represented most of the Oakland County portion of the district at one time or another. Due to Detroit's dwindling population, it was no longer possible to keep the district exclusively within Wayne County. In the August 2012 Democratic primary, he defeated Clarke (who opted to follow most of his constituents into the reconfigured 14th even though his home had been drawn into the reconfigured 13th—the old 14th) and Southfield Mayor Brenda Lawrence. The 14th is a heavily Democratic, 58 percent black-majority district, and Peters was overwhelmingly favored in November. As expected, he bested Republican John Hauler in the general election with 82 percent of the vote. He was the first white congressman to represent a significant portion of Detroit since 1993.

In July 2010, the Michigan Messenger wrote that Peters was "criticizing the leadership of his own party. Peters and three other Democratic legislators...this week formed the Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction Working Group and proposed a series of bills to cut spending. Peters’ bill makes cuts in the federal energy budget.”[39] “We have been growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of action and talking about specifics and putting those on the table,” Peters said. “We’ve been frustrated with both Democratic leadership and Republicans.”[40]

Peters allied himself with the Occupy Wall Street movement, making an appearance at Occupy Detroit on November 6. Speaking to reporters, he stated: "It's speculation on Wall Street that we're still paying the price for here, particularly in Detroit that almost brought the auto industry to a collapse because of what we saw on Wall Street. So we put in restrictions, or put in regulations necessary to reign that in, and right now in Washington I’m facing a Republican majority that wants to undo that."[41]

He was one of 118 house Democrats who signed a letter to the president urging him to support the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a multinational organization that provides health services (including birth control) to women, children and families in over 150 countries.[42]

In 2014, Peters voiced opposition to a Michigan law which prohibits insurers from offering abortion coverage as a standard feature in health plans.[43]

Legislation

111th Congress (2009-2010)

H.R. 1527, a bill to impose a 60% income tax on bonuses exceeding $10,000 paid to employees of businesses in which the federal government has at least 79% ownership of, introduced March 16, 2009

H.R. 1957, a bill to replace the Hope Scholarship and Lifetime Learning tax credits and the tax deduction for tuition expenses with an income tax credit equal to 50% of tuition and related expenses, up to $10,000 per taxable year, introduced April 2, 2009

H.R. 3246, a bill to create and expand programs for developing and improving vehicle technology, introduced July 17, 2009, reintroduced in the 112th Congress as H.R. 1367 and in the 113th Congress as H.R. 1027

H.R. 5302, a bill to establish a program to increase access to capital for small businesses, introduced May 13, 2009

H.R. 5337, a bill to make it a crime to create, sell, distribute, or offer material containing extreme animal cruelty, which the bill defines, introduced May 18, 2010

H.R. 5780, a bill to eliminate tax credits and deductions for oil and natural gas, introduced July 20, 2010

112th Congress (2011-2012)

H.R. 6078, a bill to increase government-wide prime contract award goals for small businesses and to increase percentage goals for historically underutilized business zones, and small businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, introduced June 29, 2012

113th Congress (2013-2014)

H.R. 4057, a bill to allow for the construction of U.S. Customs and Border Protection customs plazas at land ports of entry into the United States, with priority given to those that experience greater traffic, introduced February 11, 2014

H.R. 4244, a bill to expand the small employer health insurance tax credits from businesses with 25 employees to 50, to increase the maximum allowance of such credit, to eliminate the requirement that employers contribute the same percentage to health insurance as employees, and to eliminate the cap limiting employer contributions to average premiums in the health insurance exchanges, introduced March 13, 2014

H.R. 4941, a bill to designate up to 20 areas as "Promise Zones" and to have these zones receive priority consideration in federal grant programs and initiatives, introduced June 23, 2014

H.R. 5045, 5046, 5047, and 5048, a package of veteran bills, introduced July 9, 2014. H.R. 5045 would prohibit the Small Business Administration (SBA) from imposing a guarantee fee on loans from SBA. H.R. 5046 would encourage the development of regulations to protect the financial security of veterans. H.R. 5047 would prohibit the Secretary of Veteran Affairs from altering the accessibility of any veteran's health care based on when he or she last received care from a veteran health care facility. H.R. 5048 would extend, create, and study various programs to reduce the suicide rate among veterans.

U.S. Senate

Elections

Peters ran for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Carl Levin.[46] Peters was endorsed by Levin and Senator Debbie Stabenow, and his entrance largely cleared the field of potential Democratic challengers.[47]

Peters' largest independent supporter was Senate Majority PAC, which has spent $3,158,755.00 in ads attacking Peters' opponent in the race.[48][49][50][51] In July 2014, Senator Elizabeth Warren supported Peters at a campaign fundraising event.[52]

While the campaign was considered competitive early on, various missteps by the campaign of his Republican Party opponent Terri Lynn Land and her reluctance to appear in public had benefited the Peters campaign with consistent leads in polls late in the campaign.[53][54][55]